Keiichiro Shibuya & The Japanese Philharmonic Düsseldorf

"Scary Beauty“ German premiere

Hi Robot – Das Mensch Maschine Festival

Wed 13.03. 20:00 HI, ROBOT!

At the concert’s centre: Alter 3. The humanoid robot employs an autonomous artificial intelligence. Face and hands resemble those of a human being, his body allowing an unhindered look at a metal skeleton, on servos, cables and control assemblies of a visibly complex machine. The Japanese Philharmonic Düsseldorf diligently follows Alter 3’s baton, flanked by Keiichiro Shibuya, composer and pianist of this “Android Opera”, as he chose to call his work himself, responsible for the electronic sound. Then, Alter 3 prepares to sing. It sings “The Seven Last Songs of Human”, narrating a tale in which humanity will be unable to live without machines in the near future, machines it yet created itself. The songs are based on emblematic texts of literary history, their respective authors ranging from Michel Houellebecq through Yukio Mishima to William S. Burroughs and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Recalculated into three-dimensional vectors, the text fragments became the starting points of the songs performed. Among Alter 3’s creators we have, apart from composer and musician Keiichiro Shibuya and software engineer professor Takashi Ikegami, the robotics expert, professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, especially. He is considered a pop star in his field, widely regarded as one of the most radical proponents of a coming society in which robots and humans exist alongside and with each other.